ARTICLES ABOUT MOLD BY DATE - PAGE 5

All three Waterford Township schools - suddenly closed this week for inspection and mold remediation - will remain shut until Monday, the district says. They were originally scheduled to reopen Thursday, but cleaning crews needed more time, according to an official statement. The Atco and Thomas Richards Schools were inspected yesterday by TTI Environmental, Inc. TTI said it found no problems at Richards. The Atco School was found to have small amounts of mold underneath some cafeteria tables and near some exhaust ducts.

Waterford Township closed all three of its schools yesterday for mold remediation and will keep them shut at least through Wednesday. The mold issue came to light after a Camden County Department of Health inspection Sept. 28 of the Waterford Elementary School. The county notified the district last week that it had found "unsatisfactory conditions" at the school. Other area school districts have been impacted by mold, some of which is attributed to breeding grounds established from record rains.

More misadventures in home makeover, this time with curtains. You may recall that two years ago I painted my family room myself, on a Type A tear, but I took the Scottoline route. By which I mean, I took shortcuts. Lots of them. I painted around pictures rather than removing them, and the paint only reached 5 feet, 6 inches up the wall, which is my height plus my arm length, minus a ladder, which I don't own. This would be the mathematical formula for do-it-yourself wainscoting.

Makes 4 servings 1 cup heavy cream 1 package Knox gelatin 1/3 cup pure maple syrup 1/2 ounce bourbon 1 cup whole milk 1. Combine half of the cream and the gelatin in a small saucepan and cook over low heat to dissolve the gelatin, about 5 minutes or less. 2. Heat remaining cream, bourbon and maple syrup in a separate pan until it begins to steam. Once the gelatin has dissolved and the maple-bourbon mixture has steamed, combine the two mixtures with the whole milk.

For Mayor Nutter, opponent T. Milton Street Sr. may be an itch that won't go away - but he is still by any measure the very distant second in next month's Democratic primary for mayor. That has freed Nutter to concentrate on how to make the most of a second term, and at the moment that means getting some allies elected to City Council, where for three-plus years he has lacked a reliable majority of votes. An official "Nutter slate" of candidates may not coalesce, but the mayor does intend to actively back Council aspirants in some competitive races for open seats.

He is who he is. Robert Levin - pianist, scholar, lecturer, stand-up comic, and relentless revisionist - gave an all-Mozart recital for a Philadelphia Chamber Music Society audience that's used to being talked to, but maybe not so much. His choice of music Thursday at the American Philosophical Society was intentionally offbeat, his way of performing it was invasive, and his manner a bit overbearing. But in a world of cultivated yet standardized performances, Levin poured some cold water on your ears, shook you out of your Mozartean comfort zone, and revealed not only the inner workings of selected piano sonatas, but also the composer's thinking process.

AS I WAS WATCHING the news the other day, I saw two people being interviewed by reporters - Moammar Gadhafi and Charlie Sheen. After the interviews, I started thinking about these two characters, and I came to the conclusion that these two are cut from the same mold. They are both in denial about the truth going on around them. They need to put these two clowns in a hospital or crazy house. Gregory Betancourt Philadelphia

Emily Pollard is a plastic surgeon who doesn't believe in scrubs outside of the operating room. "It's disrespectful to my patients," said the fiftysomething Ardmore doc with the modest closet space - not including her shoe niche and her special place for bags - that she's packed with oodles of style. Her philosophy is simple: Dresses are best in muted prints. Suits should be bold solids. And there is no point in mixing more than one texture or print within an outfit. Leave that to the style professionals, she said.

In the end, it was probably Dinky. In the parlor. With dander. The clues all pointed to him, but South Jersey medical examiner Gerald Feigin wanted to rule out other suspects first. Now, Feigin has deduced that his own mutt, Dinky Little Dog, has been slowly "killing me. " The Chihuahua-terrier mix looks innocent as he snoozes by the sofa, but Dinky's black-and-white fur has been harboring tiny doses of allergens from sloughed-off skin cells. Feigin began sleeping in a backyard tent in June to escape a mysterious illness he blamed on invisible mold mycotoxins inside his tony home in Washington Township.

When it comes to the housing market for foreclosures - buyer beware. "One mistake that we see all the time is buyers going in and assuming all the mechanicals are working," said Brandon T. Johnson, president of GTJ Consulting in Roseville, Mich. "You have to be careful you don't get burned that way. " Johnson's company maintains foreclosed homes for a number of lenders, Realtors and Freddie Mac. He said the term "as is" shouldn't scare buyers off as long as they know what it means.